The Untouchables

Foreign diplomats in America have a blank check for bad behavior.

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• Michael Crowley

Diplomatic Impunity

In early 2005, Virginia police closed in on a suspected child predator -- a man in his 40s who cops say drove four hours to meet a 13-year-old girl he'd met on the Internet, promising to teach her about sex. It turned out the girl was really a cop, and officers arrested the man at a shopping mall.

But then it was the police who got an unpleasant surprise. Their suspect, Salem Al-Mazrooei, was a diplomat from the United Arab Emirates -- and therefore covered by "diplomatic immunity." The cops had to let him go. Days later, Al-Mazrooei left the country, never having spent a night in jail.

Diplomatic immunity? Diplomatic impunity is more like it. Thanks to several international treaties observed by most nations, diplomats and embassy workers get special protections and privileges in the places they're posted. Many of them can't be arrested, sued or even taxed by host countries.

Some forms of diplomatic immunity are extremely important. For example, we need to make sure foreign diplomats -- especially our own people overseas -- don't get locked up for political reasons. The problem is that immunity has come to be used as an absurdly broad cover for sleazy or criminal behavior. As a result, many of the 100,000 foreign diplomats and their dependents in America can break laws, blow off bills, even park where they please -- and never pay for it.

While the vast majority act responsibly, some of them -- including citizens of countries that get billions in taxpayer-funded U.S. foreign aid -- behave in ways that would land anyone else behind bars. Immunity, says UN critic Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute, "invites abuse. And sure enough, the invitation has been accepted."

Nobody knows this like the people of New York City, home to the United Nations. The UN rarely gets much done, but somehow its officials are still too busy to park legally. Between 1997 and the end of 2002, foreign diplomats racked up more than 150,000 unpaid parking tickets -- totaling a staggering $18 million. But thanks to diplomatic immunity, the city has no power to collect.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg: The money is even bigger when it comes to property taxes. Diplomats get tax-exempt real estate for their official business, but some use the property to turn a profit. According to New York officials, diplomats from the Philippines, for example, ran a bank, a restaurant and even an airlines office from their Manhattan complex -- for which they neglected to pay more than $1 million in taxes. Since the city can't go after the diplomats directly, it has resorted to suing foreign governments. But when New York sued Turkey for $70 million in back property taxes in 2003, the city wound up settling for a puny $5 million.

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“ A frightened captain makes a frightened crew. ”

— Lister Sinclair

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